Talk:Richard Strauss
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[edit] changes
I have reverted some of the Ger/Eng changes here as discussed on the Zweig page. Also Sprach is usually translated as Thus spake by the way, I suppose because it was a contemporary attempt to make the Englsih sound contemporary with the story! :) Nevilley 16:24 Dec 23, 2002 (UTC)
- Interesting. Thank you for the explanation. Best regards. --XJamRastafire 19:37 Dec 23, 2002 (UTC)
- You're very welcome! Nevilley 19:46 Dec 23, 2002 (UTC)
[edit] Omission?
Doesn't "Death and Transfiguration" deserve recognition in an article about R. Strauss?
- Sure. You could add a mention of it yourself, if you wanted - be bold in updating pages and all that. Anyway, I'll add a mention myself (no sign of Don Quixote either, I'll stick that and a couple of others in too, probably). --Camembert
[edit] Sources for 1930s period
Recognizing that this is controversial, here are the sources I am using for the writeup of the 1930s. I see no convincing evidence that Strauss EVER collaborated with the Nazis: indeed he played the game just right in order to keep his daughter-in-law Alice and her family out of the gas chambers. I'm using the big article on Richard Strauss in volume 18 of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (by Michael Kennedy); also Nicolas Slonimsky's article in the Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Here as elsewhere I don't trust most Internet sources. Antandrus
[edit] rumor
I removed the following anonymous addition to the article:
- It is rumored that, explaining his decision to stay while many of his fellow German intellectuals and artists defected to America and Britain, Strauss supposedly said, "Germany had fifty-six opera houses; the United States had two."
I don't mind putting this back in if a source can be named; it's an interesting comment, but Wikipedia cannot report rumors. Strauss was nearing 70 when Hitler came to power, far too late in life to pack up his bags and leave; all his friends, all his musical life was in Germany, and besides he was contemptuous of politicians, and thought of their activities as ephemeral and easily ignored. Staying in Germany was the logical choice for him, considering his personality. Antandrus (talk) 01:42, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Four Last Songs
I believe these are in the same category as Schubert's Schwanengesang. In both cases, the composer wrote them as separate songs at different times, and they were found among the composer's unpublished papers at his death. In both cases, a publisher posthumously collated them into a set, and gave it a title which, by definition, was never known to the composer. Is this something that needs to be pointed out in the article? or is it something that is considered more or less irrelevant given the fame of the set as we know it today (regardless of who may have done the collating and who may have supplied the title)? JackofOz 07:07, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
- According to the New Grove he finished them all between May and September 1948, and they were the main compositional effort of his last years (he was also sketching an opera during 1948 which he never finished). I'm not aware of the songs being put together as a set after his death; I always thought (not necessarily correctly) that he intended the four as a set, rather like the last four of Brahms. (Looks like we need an article on the Four Last Songs ... and, good God, only three non-operatic pieces by Strauss currently have articles ... oh my) Antandrus (talk) 14:52, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
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- Antandrus is correct, Jackof Oz isn't. Sorry! Dunnhaupt 21:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry it's taken me a whole to get back here. I only asked this because in my copy of Grove V (published 1954, Vols I-IX; republished 1961 with a Supplementary Volume X; reprinted 1966), they're listed as follows:
- Im Abendrot for high voice (Joseph von Eichendorff) (1948)
- Drei Gesange for high voice (Hermann Hesse) (1948)
- 1. Frühling
- 2. Vor dem Schlafengehen
- 3. September.
The Supplementary Volume X corrects this to:
- Vier Letzte Lieder for high voice
- 1. Frühling (Hesse)
- 2. Vor dem Schlafengehen (Hesse)
- 3. September (Hesse)
- 4. Im Abendrot (Eichendorff).
Thus, it seems that the title "4 Last Songs" came about at some time after 1954, and before 1961, as did the collection of a set of 3 songs and an unrelated song into a set of 4. This was somewhere between 5 and 12 years after Strauss's death. JackofOz 05:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Nazis
If he was "absolved of any Nazi ties" in court, as the article states, then why spend fully half of the entire article on the Nazis? He was a composer who protected and sheltered his Jewish daughter-in-law and her child in his home. Enough already! Let's have more about his music and less political crap. All that stuff happened 65 or 70 years ago! Dunnhaupt 21:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Recordings
There was clearly a need to write about Richard Strauss' numerous recordings. This is, admittedly, just a beginning because the evidence indicates that Strauss made many recordings and, fortunately, many of them have been issued on CD. There will undoubtedly continue to be more releases. One would hope that the complete 1944 recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic would be issued on CD, if they haven't already; they were released by Vanguard some years ago and took about five LPs. They were remastered, too, and had remarkably clear, high fidelity sound. By 1944 the Magnetopon had been greatly approved and a few stereo tapes were made with other orchestras. All of these technological breakthroughs led to the formation of the Ampex Corporation, which resulted in the use of magnetic tape and much improved fidelity in commercial recordings after World War II. Sallyrob 19:42, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] No mention of Strauss's love of the soprano voice?
It's common knowledge among musicians (but not necessarily Wikipedia readers) that Strauss was in love with the soprano (or at least female) voice, and that he's given us some of the most exquisite music for them — in operas such as Rosenkavalier, and in his Lieder. Could we not mention this in the article?
